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Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

reuters.com

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Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#51
post #18

> The packages for departing employees will include the equivalent of their full base pay through the end of 2026. Healthcare coverage is different across the globe, and if you’re in the United States, we’ll continue to provide support through the end of the year. We are also vesting equity for departing team members through August 15th, so they receive stock beyond their departure date. And, if departing team member…

In Europe they’re pretty much obligated to provide this package

Definitely not true in the UK. This is extremely rare for it's generosity. I've never seen anything like this in the UK.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#54
post #14

I dislike the title because it doesn't clearly state it's a layoff. "Building for the future" gave me the impression that it's about some major new initiative with a roadmap outlining plans.

Two days ago: “Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%” (layoffs) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48021368

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#55

That's 2 major layoffs this week (Coinbase being the other). Is there an underlying common reason for this? And is it indeed AI-driven productivity as both companies claim?

There's multiple simultaneous narratives: the industry-wide one of slashing well-paid tech talent under the guise of AI productivity boosts, and what's actually going in at each company.

Cloudflare is an outlier because the company doesn't actually make money at present; their past three annual statements show net losses in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Not hemorrhaging cash per se (their cash reserves alone could cover ~9 more years of losses), but still enough to warrant some cutbacks - and AI is the current scapegoat, thus they finger AI and throw folks out the door.

Coinbase's story is different: they're making good money, but their industry is inherently volatile. Again, recent volatility in the crypto markets related to...things...is dragging down long-term prospects for currencies, while ongoing trades are broadly just insiders doing insider things or exiting their positions for liquidity. Still, their share price is down 27% over 5 years and 18% YTD, so they also need to pump their share price so the executives get paid; layoffs are consistently rewarded by the shareholders, thus they axe part of their workforce for the bump and fingerpoint to AI.

Never take what a company says at face value, and always check their balance sheets. What Cloudflare did sucks but could be warranted to some degree; what Coinbase did has no justification whatsoever beyond naked greed.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#60

There was an recent article on X with an interesting take - it could be that companies are doing layoffs not because AI is making them more productive but because it hasn't . Their costs have gone up paying for expensive AI but haven't seen any revenue benefits to offset it. Article https://x.com/championswimmer/status/2051807284691612099

This is no that far fetched... I don't think it's that common that a customer sits on the fence and says "If only company X had Y on their feature list I'll be a paying customer". So the speed at which the company now runs through its roadmap does not equate to new customers joining.
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